Wireless communication systems of various kinds are known in the art. Increasingly, such wireless communication services provide support for relatively high bandwidth applications and services such as, but not limited to, streaming services. (Those skilled in the art will understand “streaming” to refer to technologies that permit relatively continuous playback of downloaded content (such as audio and/or video content) during the transfer of such content to the playback platform.)
Existing systems typically provide such services as streaming services without sufficient regard for system capacity management (and particularly improvement of capacity management). Such issues can be particularly telling with respect to mobile-to-mobile communications (and perhaps even more so with mobile-to-many-mobiles communications) where at least two different communication links (often referred to as legs) are used to facilitate delivery of content from one mobile platform to another.
As a result, present practices may lead to system user experiences that can vary considerably from one communication to the next (or even within a same communication session) due to various exigencies and circumstances that typify wireless communications notwithstanding relatively aggressive attempts to provide a relatively highest level of service as can be relatively provided on a leg-by-leg basis. The latter efforts, in turn, result in a relatively diminished overall system capacity and hence can impact how many users and sessions can be accommodated by the communication system itself.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions and/or relative positioning of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various embodiments of the present invention. Also, common but well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment are often not depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments of the present invention. It will further be appreciated that certain actions and/or steps may be described or depicted in a particular order of occurrence while those skilled in the art will understand that such specificity with respect to sequence is not actually required. It will also be understood that the terms and expressions used herein have the ordinary meaning as is accorded to such terms and expressions with respect to their corresponding respective areas of inquiry and study except where specific meanings have otherwise been set forth herein.